The present application relates to screw caps that are widely used in the beverage and water bottle industry, and bottle carriers that provide a convenient method for the transportation of beverage and water bottles.
The bottled beverage and bottled water industry is thriving in the United States and abroad. Currently most of the bottles in the industry are made of PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) plastic. The majority of the PET bottles in the industry range in size from 4 oz. to 1 gallon. With water weighing in at 8.36 pounds per gallon, the larger PET bottles in the industry can prove to be very burdensome to carry for anyone, and especially the elderly. Nevertheless, most of the large PET beverage and water bottles in the industry are without handles. Of the bottles that do have handles, the industry has built many of them into the actual structure of the bottle. However, many of the plastic handles developed may be quite uncomfortable or even injurious to the human hand as they may embody small diameters, and require that the bottle be held at awkward angles. More recently, plastic handles are now being attached to the neck of the bottles. Unfortunately, these cheap disposable handles are made from thin plastic and may be extremely hard on the human hand when carrying the heavier three liter to one gallon bottles around the house, to the park, to the gym, or to a sporting event. Consequently, there is a need for a handle for all the large beverage and water bottles that have no handle, and a need for an improved handle in the industry for the bottles that do have handles, a handle that may not be so hard on, or injurious to the human hand.
In addition to having handle problems, these PET beverage and water bottles serve up another problem as well. Many of the screw caps attached to these beverage and water bottles may be extremely difficult to remove from the bottles especially upon first removal from their factory positioning. If the human hand is wet, the difficulty of removing the screw cap from the bottle is compounded further. For the elderly, removal of a screw cap may prove extremely difficult. An Injury, or an abrasion to the hand may occur in the process of removing some of the more tightly connected screw caps. Accordingly, screw cap removal tools have been developed to facilitate the removal of screw caps from these bottles as to avoid any injury or abrasions to the human hand. Also, a large number of the beverage and water bottle screws caps on the market today have diameters of less than one inch, thus making the task of removing the screw cap from the bottle even more difficult as the smaller the screw cap is the more difficult it may be to remove it. As follows, there is a need for the current beverage and water bottles in the industry to have screw cap diameters of at least two inches that can be more easily removed than the current screw caps on the market.
Over the years, a variety of U.S. patents have issued on bottle handles and bottle openers. U.S. Pat. No. 3,275,366 issued to W. E. Hidding Feb. 23, 1965, shows plastic carrier with a support having a first collar section and a second collar section, the two collar sections are connected to a neck of a bottle below a bead of the bottle. Each collar section has a leading lug on one end and a trailing lug on the other end. A first rotatable coupling member and a second rotatable coupling member associates with each pair of leading and trailing lugs. A handle is connected to the rotatable coupling members. The manner in which the Hidding embodiment is configured could make the removal of the handle for the bottle rather tedious.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,463,536 issued to A. V. Updegraff Jan. 10, 1967 shows a handle having a flat annulus with the inner edge of the annulus having a plurality of radially inwardly extending flexible fingers disposed in the plane of the annulus. The handle has a U-shaped bail having a pair of spaced parallel arms and a base forming a finger grip. The annulus of the handle stretches over a shoulder of a bottle, supporting the bottle below the bottle shoulder. The handle flexes when lifting a bottle. The removal of the Updegraff handle from the bottle could be difficult, and the Updegraff bottle handle appears awkwardly shaped, and might possibly cause injury to the human hand when gripping the handle engaged with a full bottle of liquid.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,403 issued to Gideon Baar-Noy Sep. 6, 1988 shows a combination bottle opener and bottle handle. The device has two parts connected together pivotably by means of a pin. Each of the two parts is provided with a semi-circular cutout. One of the parts has a hook-like member while the other part has a notch that enables both parts to be fastened together when used as a handle. This handle might not work with a large bottle as the neck of the bottle could give out from the weight of the bottle contents, causing the bottleneck to collapse.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,183,169 issued to Stephen D Grzych Feb. 2, 1993 shows a reusable bottle handle having an upwardly diverging bonnet shaped jacket with an arm extending upward from the jacket. The arm includes a bottle neck ring at a free end of the arm and a gripping portion between the bottle neck and the jacket. The thin plastic handle in this embodiment may be rather awkward to grasp with the human hand.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,577,647 issued to Diana Pitarelli and Michael J. Langieri, Jr shows a single bottle carrier with a strap attached to a bottle carrying device through two apertures extending horizontally through the bottle carrying device. The bottle carrying device has a squeeze spout located in the center area of the bottle carrying device above a bottle top that it receives. The bottle carrying device is designed to be used with water bottles that can be held in the hand.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,394,517 issued to James C. Borg May 28, 2002 shows a single bottle carrier. The Borg handle is similar to the Updegraff embodiment, however the Borg handle grasps a bottle beneath a flange near the top of the bottle. Additionally the Borg handle has scalloped inner edges dimensioned to fit the fingers of a user's hand. Nevertheless, the Borg handle is made of thin plastic and it could be rather painful on the human fingers using the Borg handle to carry the weight a 3 liter, or one gallon bottle that weighs 8 pounds. Also, once engaged with the bottle the Borg handle, as with the Updefraff handle, cannot be removed from the bottle, and is not reusable.
U.S. Publication 2015/0041427 A1 Pub. Feb. 12, 2015 of Khun, Nyan Taw, shows a combination bottle handle, opener, and hanger. It is designed to serve as a bottle handle, opener, and an apparatus that allows users to hang or secure their plastic bottles to other items such as a backpack or a bike bag. A bottle is inserted into an insertion hole on a bottle attachment portion and pressed into a smaller bottle lock hole in order to position a bottle neck flange groove of the bottle attachment portion. A first and second tapered edge traversing from the bottle insertion hole to the bottle locking hole are separated by a distance smaller that the bottle locking hole, providing additional support for the bottle within the bottle locking hole. A bottle-opening portion adjacent to the bottle attachment portion allows the user to open a capped glass bottle, and a handle portion provides an area for the user to easily hold, handle, and manipulate the bottle while in the locked position. This embodiment is limited to bottles with a volume of two liters or less.